A small bank will to allow its customers to deposit checks with an iPhone application, while an electronic publisher has made more than 7,000 textbooks available for viewing on the platform.

e-texbooks from CourseSmart

CourseSmart, a subscription e-textbook service, released its App Store software last week. The program, entitled "eTextbooks for the iPhone," offers 7,000 different textbooks for college students from 12 different publishers. It is free for subscribers, and the company states that students save an average of 50 percent on books.

In an interview The Wall Street Journal Monday, CourseSmart Executive Vice President Frank Lyman said the application is more of an asset than a textbook replacement.

"Nobody is going to use their iPhone to do their homework, but this does provide real mobile learning," he said. "If you're in a study group and you have a question, you can immediately access your text."

The service, created in 2007, is a collaboration between six higher-education publishers. The subscription model allows students to rent textbooks, typically for 180 days. When the subscription expires, students lose access to their e-texbooks.

Amazon has attempted to break into the digital textbook realm with its larger e-book reader, the Kindle DX. The books available on the iPhone are not on the Kindle. Earlier this year, Amazon released its iPhone-optimized Kindle store, which allowed users to read books on the go. Similarly, the Barnes & Noble eReader also debuted on the platform this year.

As software makers vie for a share of the e-reader market, Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research, told the Journal that the CourseSmart offering could be a breakthrough for e-textbooks.

"Textbooks are the missing link in the e-reader content base," she said. "The problem so far is that college students haven't really been interested in reading on their laptops. The iPhone will help create excitement and generate awareness of e-textbooks."

USAA to offer remote check depositing

This week, USAA, a small bank that serves mostly military personnel, plans to update its iPhone application to allow customers the ability to deposit checks remotely. The feature will work by having customers photograph both sides of the check using the iPhone's camera.

Revealed in a story in Monday's New York Times, the new feature highlights the company's efforts to reach its customers all over the world. Currently, USAA has only one branch in San Antonio, Tex., and is just shy of the top 20 sized banks in the U.S.

"We’re essentially taking an image of the check, and once you hit the send button, that image is going into our deposit-taking system as any other check would," USAA Executive Vice President Wayne Peacock said.

The bank has 7.2 million customers, and estimates that about 1 million use their cell phones to access their account. The Times cites a report from comScore that states more than 15 million people in the U.S. use their smartphone to access their bank account. The firm's senior director credits the iPhone with the explosive popularity of mobile banking.

"It’s the iPhone that really propelled things to the forefront," he said.

There was a study that showed many students, ie Doctors, absorbed more since having their iPhone on them. I see no reason why composers, musicians, engineers coldnt do the same thing, especially if they offer free interactive study guides, eg, musicians, the table for understanding flats and sharps.

Have a great week everyone. It's going to be a great week. Am believing this.
Peace.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

A small bank will to allow its customers to deposit checks with an iPhone application, while an electronic publisher has made more than 7,000 textbooks available for viewing on the platform.

e-texbooks from CourseSmart

CourseSmart, a subscription e-textbook service, released its App Store software last week. The program, entitled "eTextbooks for the iPhone," offers 7,000 different textbooks for college students from 12 different publishers. It is free for subscribers, and the company states that students save an average of 50 percent on books.

In an interview The Wall Street Journal Monday, CourseSmart Executive Vice President Frank Lyman said the application is more of an asset than a textbook replacement.

"Nobody is going to use their iPhone to do their homework, but this does provide real mobile learning," he said. "If you're in a study group and you have a question, you can immediately access your text."

The service, created in 2007, is a collaboration between six higher-education publishers. The subscription model allows students to rent textbooks, typically for 180 days. When the subscription expires, students lose access to their e-texbooks.

Amazon has attempted to break into the digital textbook realm with its larger e-book reader, the Kindle DX. The books available on the iPhone are not on the Kindle. Earlier this year, Amazon released its iPhone-optimized Kindle store, which allowed users to read books on the go. Similarly, the Barnes & Noble eReader also debuted on the platform this year.

As software makers vie for a share of the e-reader market, Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research, told the Journal that the CourseSmart offering could be a breakthrough for e-textbooks.

"Textbooks are the missing link in the e-reader content base," she said. "The problem so far is that college students haven't really been interested in reading on their laptops. The iPhone will help create excitement and generate awareness of e-textbooks."

USAA to offer remote check depositing

This week, USAA, a small bank that serves mostly military personnel, plans to update its iPhone application to allow customers the ability to deposit checks remotely. The feature will work by having customers photograph both sides of the check using the iPhone's camera.

Revealed in a story in Monday's New York Times, the new feature highlights the company's efforts to reach its customers all over the world. Currently, USAA has only one branch in San Antonio, Tex., and is just shy of the top 20 sized banks in the U.S.

"We’re essentially taking an image of the check, and once you hit the send button, that image is going into our deposit-taking system as any other check would," USAA Executive Vice President Wayne Peacock said.

The bank has 7.2 million customers, and estimates that about 1 million use their cell phones to access their account. The Times cites a report from comScore that states more than 15 million people in the U.S. use their smartphone to access their bank account. The firm's senior director credits the iPhone with the explosive popularity of mobile banking.

"It’s the iPhone that really propelled things to the forefront," he said.

i used to read paper text books on the train to and from work. when they decided to go to pdf files my 30 minute commute became a waste of time and it got harder to read course assignments. too bad they didn't have this back in 2004

Amazon has attempted to break into the digital textbook realm with its larger e-book reader, the Kindle DX. The books available on the iPhone are not on the Kindle. Earlier this year, Amazon released its iPhone-optimized Kindle store, which allowed users to read books on the go. Similarly, the Barnes & Noble eReader also debuted on the platform this year.

"Its the iPhone that really propelled things to the forefront," he said.

The iPhone camera has no image stabilization so they are going to be sorting through thousands blurry checks. Even as calm as I am I have to take several shots of whatever I'm taking a picture of because most of them will be blurry.

The iPhone camera has no image stabilization so they are going to be sorting through thousands blurry checks. Even as calm as I am I have to take several shots of whatever I'm taking a picture of because most of them will be blurry.

Ya know they have computers and software at USAA that can figure out a lot of that stuff - they aren't going to have people sitting there looking through all of them. They'll probably run all of them through their software and the few that don't get picked up they will have people look at. I really don't think it's that big of a deal and considering their cliental (myself included) aren't exactly the type to go around massively counterfeiting stuff.

The iPhone camera has no image stabilization so they are going to be sorting through thousands blurry checks. Even as calm as I am I have to take several shots of whatever I'm taking a picture of because most of them will be blurry.

even in a well lit situation? You shouldn't be running into that problem when there's a lot of light.

Ya know they have computers and software at USAA that can figure out a lot of that stuff - they aren't going to have people sitting there looking through all of them. They'll probably run all of them through their software and the few that don't get picked up they will have people look at. I really don't think it's that big of a deal and considering their cliental (myself included) aren't exactly the type to go around massively counterfeiting stuff.

You make a good point about counterfeiting from their current customer base. Leads me to wonder (judging from another post about membership criteria) just how many of their customers are going to "trust" depositing checks by sending a picture.

The iPhone camera has no image stabilization so they are going to be sorting through thousands blurry checks. Even as calm as I am I have to take several shots of whatever I'm taking a picture of because most of them will be blurry.

I would suggest rigging stand for the iPhone. You cold use a wood frame, metal along with good lighting. A simple way would be stack some books cantilever fashion with the iphone and that should do it. No motion artifact and proper light should give hi res photos.

Another question I have... is there bar code reader software for the iPhone?

The interest in ebooks should increase even more when/if apple releases their iTablet as predicted. To bad they aren't releasing it this fall. Would be just in time for the school season start. My only issue would be cost. Sure, ebooks with this app would save students money on paper books, but if you have to drop $400+ on an ebook reader (i.e. iTablet, Kindle, Sony etc.) you really aren't saving much money. Perhaps if Apple's new tablet would be geared more as just a reader (like a larger verson of the iPod Touch) and drop the price to be competitive with Sony or others, then maybe we'd have something. Then maybe apple would give student discounts on the iTablet too? We'll see...

As for the iPhone app. I just can't see reading a school textbook on screen that size. So that would lead me to believe that Apple and CoursSmart have something planned in the future.

standarization of ebook formats is a MUST if ebooks are to be the future of the learning process. That seems to be the biggest problem over the history of this media type. The publishing companies need to have a pow-wow about standardized formats. No school will yet require or suggest ebooks until they comply with a format that works on all eReaders.

A small bank will to allow its customers to deposit checks with an iPhone application,
...
This week, USAA, a small bank that serves mostly military personnel,
...
Currently, USAA has only one branch in San Antonio, Tex., and is just shy of the top 20 sized banks in the U.S.
...
The bank has 7.2 million customers, and estimates that about 1 million use their cell phones to access their account.

As has been commented on already (and noted in the article itself), USAA is definitley not "small".
$31 billion iin 3.8 million accounts in the bank. USAA is also into insurance & investments.
It is not a publicly owned company and it has only one branch office, yet in 2004 was voted the number one bank by Money Magazine.
You must be military/prior military or have parents who are members, to join.

standarization of ebook formats is a MUST if ebooks are to be the future of the learning process. That seems to be the biggest problem over the history of this media type. The publishing companies need to have a pow-wow about standardized formats. No school will yet require or suggest ebooks until they comply with a format that works on all eReaders.

Agreed. However, the business opportunity is certainly there. I have 3 grandkids that lug 18+lb backpacks full of books to school and back each day.

The textbooks are beautiful, full color... and a terrible waste, considering an electronic copy could serve as well or better.

It is fun that you still use checks in the US. Checks have been considered antique in most of Europe for at least 15 years.
Don't you have internet banks?

I'd like to learn more about this. If you receive a rebate, tax refund, buy real estate, pay invoices, or simply need to exchange money through the mail, how do you do it? Checks are pretty easy. I wish private individuals could accept credit card payments, but they don't let you do that for some reason.

About the camera though, the first gen iPhone camera is so poor I doubt you could use it to produce a legal document unless the photo is being taken in ideal lighting by an experienced photographer.

I wonder what [rumored] new portable device would be ideal as a textbook replacement for the estimated 18 million college students...

BINGO BINGO DING DING give the man a prize
i think whatever apple has for us is not the stereotype "notebook, pad, netbook" what ever else those analysts say, SJ always want to provide value, and to expand into other markets...he will redefine the market. but he needs software and support. now comes the huge market of text books, this would save billions just in reducing back pain, school libraries could wirelessly download these to students, have a subscription service (SJ would approve for this and have an itunes store for textbooks.
)

for text books, students, profs, professionals holding a specialized gizmo that DOES TEXT BOOKS RIGHT--would be huge. and if it could do iphone apps and internet, WOW

we are seeing a new market to explode.

now, you buy a textbook save some bucks with used, hope its close to the edition your prof wants, then resell. the publisher and author only see royalties once with a subscription service everyone wins.

There was a study that showed many students, ie Doctors, absorbed more since having their iPhone on them. I see no reason why composers, musicians, engineers coldnt do the same thing, especially if they offer free interactive study guides, eg, musicians, the table for understanding flats and sharps.

Have a great week everyone. It's going to be a great week. Am believing this.
Peace.

As an engineer I can tell you engineering will be one of, if not, the last profession to switch to digital books. We write all over our stuff and keep tons of reference books. I'm not saying it won't happen but I'm saying it'll be at least 20-30 years (if not longer) for it to really become standard in the scientific community (engineering, physics, etc)

now, you buy a textbook save some bucks with used, hope its close to the edition your prof wants, then resell. the publisher and author only see royalties once with a subscription service everyone wins.

You know, the main reason why e-textbooks haven't got off the ground isn't because of the technical problems of viewing it on your laptop or what-have-you. It's really about the pricing, because with some textbooks, you can still get them much cheaper than 50% off if they're bought off half.com or amazon and then resell them. So any smart consumer that does their homework (no pun intended) will choose to still buy off half.com or amazon.

I'd like to learn more about this. If you receive a rebate, tax refund, buy real estate, pay invoices, or simply need to exchange money through the mail, how do you do it? Checks are pretty easy. I wish private individuals could accept credit card payments, but they don't let you do that for some reason.

Received money are just deposited to my bank account, no matter the source. The bank sends me an e-mail notifying me that I have received the money. If I want to pay money to someone, either a company or a person, I just enter the bank account number in my internet bank, and the money are immediately transferred. Invoices are usually delivered electronicly to the internet bank. All I have to do is to approve the payment.

Sure, i'm all for the lite back-back scenario. I hated having to lug around 50 lbs.+ in textbooks, especially history and math books (ugh!) With a device like this new iTablet, you can eliminate the need for books, calculators, computer labs, etc. But...at the price point that is currently rumored, it's still a scenario that favors the privilaged. No inter-city kid is going to be able to afford a kindle/iTablet what-have-you and be able to afford the cost of ebooks. Second-hand and used books are still way cheaper than the life-cycle cost of a eBook Reader.

What i've suggested in previous blogs is for an apple to price this tablet close to that of the iPod Touch, or even less. Then provide academic support/subsidies for students.

I think those that have discretionary $$ will jump at the chance to do this. And think of all the "elite" schools that will get their students to buy it as part of their tuition and/or student services fee. The publishers will quickly realize that they have to lower prices if they want to get people to embrace the technology.

I think that may be one of the reasons why B&N has been active lately: buying Fictionwise, announcing upcoming ebook reader and just today reuniting B&N College Bookstores back into the fold. I expect their publishing divisions will have something to do with their ebook and possibly offerings from Apple as well.

...
now, you buy a textbook save some bucks with used, hope its close to the edition your prof wants, then resell. the publisher and author only see royalties once with a subscription service everyone wins.

Everybody wins EXCEPT for you. You'll find the 'rental' price will be remarkably close to the retail price of the book now, say 5% cheaper, not 50% cheaper.

I heard a great tip for taking non-blurry pics in low light. Hold down the camera button and frame your image. Then lightly remove your finger to take the picture. Works great. It turns out that a lot of the blur in low light comes from the camera jiggling when you tap it.

Received money are just deposited to my bank account, no matter the source. The bank sends me an e-mail notifying me that I have received the money. If I want to pay money to someone, either a company or a person, I just enter the bank account number in my internet bank, and the money are immediately transferred. Invoices are usually delivered electronicly to the internet bank. All I have to do is to approve the payment.

That sounds so modern. We do wire transfers occasionally but for everyday invoicing checks are the way business is done here in the US. Even corporate credit cards for expense accounts are a bookkeeping nightmare. I would be concerned that doing everything electronically would be a security risk as well.

I think I prefer paper. Photo copies and paper trails are good for audits too. Plus, I'm sure my bank isn't going to do all that extra accounting without a fee.

As an engineer I can tell you engineering will be one of, if not, the last profession to switch to digital books. We write all over our stuff and keep tons of reference books. I'm not saying it won't happen but I'm saying it'll be at least 20-30 years (if not longer) for it to really become standard in the scientific community (engineering, physics, etc)

Why couldn't you write all over an electronic book?

You could type, scribble and draw-- your whim of the moment.

At some point in time, the tablet device will have software that can recognize handwriting (and printing, as well as scanning/recognizing text with OCR. Likewise, there will be tools to auto-help you clean up your drawings.

Further, you would not be limited to writing in margins-- you would have an unlimited-size page with enough blank space to accommodate your need.

You could annotate: underline, draw different-colored boxes or circles around the electronic content or paste images, video and audio/voice notes.

Not only that, you could link and cross-reference your notes and add keywords for searching.

Once you have purchased the [electronic] reference book it is yours, forever, in all its annotated glory.

Just think... you could even find your notes!

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

At some point in time, the tablet device will have software that can recognize handwriting (and printing, as well as scanning/recognizing text with OCR. Likewise, there will be tools to auto-help you clean up your drawings.

Further, you would not be limited to writing in margins-- you would have an unlimited-size page with enough blank space to accommodate your need.

You could annotate: underline, draw different-colored boxes or circles around the electronic content or paste images, video and audio/voice notes.

Not only that, you could link and cross-reference your notes and add keywords for searching.

Once you have purchased the [electronic] reference book it is yours, forever, in all its annotated glory.

Just think... you could even find your notes!

I'm just telling you it's not going to happen. Computers aren't durable enough no matter how great it would be to have all your books in just a few pounds. You draw things, circle things, erase things. The engineering community is, in this regard, very conservative. Heck, even tho we already have many of our manuals available electronically we print them out - all of us. And when we want to find something we look up the paper version because otherwise we have to hunt down the electronic version and then find the page again and then you're stuck looking at a screen.

It's just not going to happen - I suppose you could do everything but we wouldn't like and it wouldn't get adopted for anything. I'm only 26 and I can't stand to read stuff on my computer screen - if I'm going to spend any decent amount of time reading a manual or a book I'm going to print it out.

(Also, I wouldn't completely ignore the power of the books makes and paper manufacturers - it may be easier and greener but congress won't let the companies and the 100k+ jobs disappear along with all the Union representation. )

The iPhone camera has no image stabilization so they are going to be sorting through thousands blurry checks. Even as calm as I am I have to take several shots of whatever I'm taking a picture of because most of them will be blurry.

That will be interesting. I can be a bit tricky to take close up photos with a camera phone. But as long as they can read the routing numbers along the bottom of the check and the check amount, it should be fine. One way to help with the OCR is have the customer also enter the dollar amount and maybe even some of the other info into the app. The OCR can then use that as a quality check to determine if it needs to be routed for manual verification.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomkarl

You make a good point about counterfeiting from their current customer base. Leads me to wonder (judging from another post about membership criteria) just how many of their customers are going to "trust" depositing checks by sending a picture.

As already mentioned, USAA already allows cashing checks by scanning them at home and submitting it electronically. It's also been pointed out that USAA has very satisfied customers, so trust may not be a big a leap as we might think. And since they only have one branch, and their customers are scattered all over the world, remote banking has always been one of USAA's strengths.

Finally, when you think about it, the bank is really getting you to do their job for them. Since most banks electronically clear checks, if you mailed a check to them for deposit, they would just scan it and then process the transactions electronically. Even if they had to have someone look at every iPhone submitted check, it would still save them money over having to pay someone to open envelopes and then organize and scan documents. You are doing the scanning for them and it would just feed into the electronic clearing process they already have in place.

That sounds so modern. We do wire transfers occasionally but for everyday invoicing checks are the way business is done here in the US. Even corporate credit cards for expense accounts are a bookkeeping nightmare. I would be concerned that doing everything electronically would be a security risk as well.

I think I prefer paper. Photo copies and paper trails are good for audits too. Plus, I'm sure my bank isn't going to do all that extra accounting without a fee.

I live in Spain and I haven't used a check in my life, all is done with debit/credit cards (mostly) or wire transfers.

Do I have to pay $2 for the train ticket? I use my card.

Do I have to pay $600 to an online store in Italy? I make a wire transfer, I doesn't have to pay anything to my bank.

All my bills (phone, electricity, gas, water, kindergarden, tolls, etc) are paid through wire transfers, they place the order every month and I doesn't have to do anything.

I'm just telling you it's not going to happen. Computers aren't durable enough no matter how great it would be to have all your books in just a few pounds. You draw things, circle things, erase things. The engineering community is, in this regard, very conservative. Heck, even tho we already have many of our manuals available electronically we print them out - all of us. And when we want to find something we look up the paper version because otherwise we have to hunt down the electronic version and then find the page again and then you're stuck looking at a screen.

It's just not going to happen - I suppose you could do everything but we wouldn't like and it wouldn't get adopted for anything. I'm only 26 and I can't stand to read stuff on my computer screen - if I'm going to spend any decent amount of time reading a manual or a book I'm going to print it out.

(Also, I wouldn't completely ignore the power of the books makes and paper manufacturers - it may be easier and greener but congress won't let the companies and the 100k+ jobs disappear along with all the Union representation. )

Obviously, I shouldn't (and won't) attempt to tell you how to do your job or what you need to do it.

But, I too, am/was an engineer. I am retired now, but I worked for large corporations: Bell & Howell, Lockheed, etc. Later, for the IBM corporation in various capacities. The type of engineering I did was mainly computer applications design and computer programming. In those days we: had racks of hundreds of reference manuals; would diagram (flow chart) our programs; hand write the program instructions on coding forms which were keypunched into punched cards. These were submitted to the computer for compilation and testing. The results were all hard copy:

-- the deck of punched cards
-- the program assembly or compilation listing
-- the program run listing
-- various trace and memory dump listings

That's the way it was when I left IBM in 1980. Every programmer or system engineer depended on a hard-copy support system.

Then something happened, personal computers, the web, hardware advancements... maybe all of them.

So, now, I do iPhone development for my own amazement.

I don't have any manuals or reference books-- they are all available electronically as: part of the SDK; web reference material (googled & hyperlinked); available on my electronic bookshelf at O'Reilly Safari Books Online, etc.

I no longer hand write flowcharts or manually write program instructions onto coding sheets for keypunch. I Just draw and type these directly into the computer.

No longer do I get any hard copy output-- listings, traces and dumps are all displayed on the computer screen.

I can't remember the last time I printed hard copy for any of this... well, maybe in 1997. But I wrote some notes on some of the pages and they were never to be seen again.

Now it is all stored electronically on the computers!

And I can access it from anywhere-- even in bed!

So, at least for this type of engineering, a tablet will just be a [much] better tool to access, and annotate, all that I need to do my job.

More power, larger screen, better UI, more convenient than either a laptop or an iPhone.

To be truthful, I admit that sometimes I still grab a pen and notepad and scribble a few instructions or diagram a complex bit of application flow (I am not completely weaned from old habits). But, if I don't take the time to redraw & type these electronically, at least I scan ithem and save the image with the app material.

Maybe not this iteration, but soon we will see tablets that can scan, interpret drawings and handwriting... so maybe I won't have to rummage around for that pen and notepad. These will be reasonably hardened devices (durable). But that won't matter too much. Up-to-date copies of all my information are securely stored externally to the device, and can be access and/or downloaded to a proxie device when necessary.

One rather significant benefit of electronic media over hard copy: You can do a planned or ad hoc presentation to an undefined number of people in an undefined number of locations with minimal planning and expense.

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

As has been commented on already (and noted in the article itself), USAA is definitley not "small".
$31 billion iin 3.8 million accounts in the bank. USAA is also into insurance & investments.
It is not a publicly owned company and it has only one branch office, yet in 2004 was voted the number one bank by Money Magazine.
You must be military/prior military or have parents who are members, to join.

Member since 2002

I opened a checking account with USAA this morning and I have never been in the military. I don't have any parents who are previous or current members. It's free to join. I just wanted to try out this iPhone app.

The iPhone camera has no image stabilization so they are going to be sorting through thousands blurry checks. Even as calm as I am I have to take several shots of whatever I'm taking a picture of because most of them will be blurry.

Just an FYI, they already allow their customers to scan checks on to a computer and email the cans in for deposit, they have the systems in place and do know what they are doing.

As another FYI they have been consistently ranked at the top of consumer satisfaction.